


Burning

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-04-02 07:28:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4051501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i'm sorry it's late & kinda short!! my wifi kind of got cut while i was writing. i hope you like it though :]</p>
    </blockquote>





	Burning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [protectignisscientia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectignisscientia/gifts).



> i'm sorry it's late & kinda short!! my wifi kind of got cut while i was writing. i hope you like it though :]

“I’ll do anything to save him.”

Your ragged breaths are laced with an earnest type of acid, burning and biting at the back of your throat.

This was in regards to her - Her Imperious Condescension's - question. The question that she had proposed in response to your offer to give her something in exchange for his life. Now, before the lore moves along, let us get something clear:

There’s a lot you don’t know. You’ve lived your life full to the brim with nothing but doubt and hopelessness throughout the sweeps, after learning what's supposed to be your place at a very, very young age. You were to do what these trolls (your masters) told you (their slave) to do, no matter what you had to back up in protest. Nothing else. That was your caste’s purpose - to be used by higher-ups.

That was all that was on your young mind, since you were never given the chance to let something else sit and occupy the space. Until you saw him. As crazy and foreign as his idea - his vision - was, it… well, it made sense to a lowblood like you. Why should one caste be higher than the other? Why should the lower coded castes be manipulated like objects - not even treated with the basic amount of respect that a sentient being deserves - but things used for another’s simple convenience…? Seen as less and treated as such?

You don’t know.

You learned that they called him the Signless. This troll - the Signless - that you had never even talked to challenged everything that you’ve been taught from night one in less than a span of ten minutes, with a singular excerpt from a sermon. And that damn well stood out to you, of course; so you just had to get a taste of this freedom that he was talking so vividly about. Countless days of thinking later, training yourself physically and psionically, right under your master’s emanation snouts- there couldn’t have been a better time. So, right before dawn, and right before he would leave the area to preach somewhere else (to avoid getting caught, of course), you joined him.

With him, his Disciple, and the Dolorosa (his guardian, you came to understand; eventually, you learned that her name was Porrim), you were able to live countless amounts of lifetimes within a span of a few sweeps. They were spent staring at Kankri's silhouette, enchanted as he closed his eyes and opened his mouth, filling the room with interpretations of his visions. Why this caste system that you all lived in was complete and utter moobeast shit. Meulin's ink soared across the pages of her record book, keeping track of his every word.

They were spent laughing along with your dearest and most beloved friends, over trivial things that shouldn’t be a laughing matter at all. On sleepless days, it was about your unavoidable captures and executions. On enthusiastic nights, spent warming your voices over a burning fire, it would be about how one day, you would all be able to see the world change for the better. To finally be equal, like how he saw.

They were spent on the run - one day, there had actually been a run-in with some subjugglators. Not a single cell in your brain screamed _we’re gonna survive_ , but when that was proved as dead wrong, escaping with a couple of injuries, but overall okay, you thought that nothing could ever get between you three and the unfolding of your lives’ ambitions - no matter how big.

So, you may have not known much, but one thing you do know now is that you were much too naive to believe that there would be a happy ending to this all. One thing that you would, indefinitely without a doubt, make sure to do is to protect him. He did nothing wrong, but you escaped from your masters when you should have stayed with them to serve serve serve.

If there was one thing that you wanted to get done with your life, you wanted him to be safe. You wanted him to live with the lively, vibrant, red blood that pumped through his veins. You needed him to.

With that said, when she gave you that cold smirk that only a seadweller bearing her blood could muster, it froze your core.

“Anyfin?”

\---

It may have not been long, but it feels like forever. When you’re stuck in a windowless room with no ability to interact with, much less observe, the outside world (other than hearing thousands of voices in your head ranging from all ages crying, screaming, or murmuring to themselves, knowing that they’re about to have a rendezvous with death any second now),  time tends to be something that's difficult to keep track of.

Another thing that factors into the difficulty of timekeeping is how aching tired your thinkpan is. Of course, being a live battery for Her ship isn’t something that you’re used to. With these fuchsia tendrils constantly sapping away an ample amount of your energy and power, it’s hard for you to keep track of anything efficiently - not even your thoughts. Every waking second is tiresome, and you’re not sure when, if ever, you’re going to get used to the feeling; the feeling of being used as an object again, but this time, to the extreme.

Since every passing second feels like sweeps overlaying sweeps, you don't even _know_ how much time passed when it happens.

It sends a cold shot right through your chest, and at first, you want to deny it. It couldn’t be, could it? It’s not possible. It can’t be him. There is no way in the fucking universe that it could be him.

… He never talked like that. At all. Ever. Right? He didn’t have it in him.

     She promised you.

     She made a fucking deal with you.

     Through the thousands- millions- of voices, one switches something deep inside you, lighting the match for betrayal.

It's Signless.

And he's screaming desperately. You can hear the quiver of pure liquid rage in his voice, the rage that you didn't even know that he was capable of bearing.

The sound of his voice yelling so vehemently makes you want to rip out the tendrils implanted so deeply into your flesh to claw the skin on your face off; to let your damned blood simmer in all of your disdain; to just do _something_ to _make it stop make it stop make it **stop**_.

But all four of your limbs are locked tightly, and the key is hidden in the snap of Her fingers. It enrages you beyond belief. With next to no way to channel this physically, you do the only thing that you can think of.

You scream back.

You scream back so violently that you can feel the scratches in your vocal cords manifesting. You don't even notice the acidic mustard stinging your eyes until you're choking, hacking, and your torso is convulsing with screaming, broken sobs.

It's him. You can hear the familiar warmth in his voice, overshadowed by his anger. But... he can't be dying, he was too lively, he was too- he- he didn't do _anything_ to deserve it.

You gave up your life in the hopes that She would let him live, but you should have fought her. If you had done that, maybe you would still be on the run with him - or maybe his visions would have come through. Maybe, just maybe, you wouldn't be hearing his voice amongst the other imminently deceased.

And the realization, if possible, just makes you break even further. It may have been seconds, it may have been hours, but you finally vaguely recognize the words that you're yelling.

"I'M SORRY, I'M SO FUCKING SORRY- I SHOULD HAVE- I'M SORRY-"

Rinse and repeat. Before you know it, there are two trolls rushing into the room you're held captive in. The bigger of the two shoves a needle into your shoulder, forcing a cold substance into your stream, but you can't feel it in your state of distress. Soon, your voice becomes muffled behind a wall of cotton; your sight and consciousness are second and last to go, losing it all to the overcrowding numbness.

 

When you come to, you're alone and as sluggish as you've ever been, your cranial dome pounding; it's as if your pan is scraping against your skull, trying desperately to escape, though to no avail.

They sedated you, and while you were unconscious, they continued to drain you as normal. As if your burst was nothing but a complication that had to be fixed; as if all you were doing was stepping out of the line.

It takes a while of gathering yourself to begin to form thoughts again, the voices combing through your psyche all the way through. Your breath weighs heavily against your chest, sticking on your tongue when you finally get a grasp on it. It's difficult - extremely so - but you catch it.

The last of what you hear of his voice is a small, pressed whisper.

"I forgive you."


End file.
